Historian of Jesus and of the resurrection
Former Bishop of Durham and Research Professor at St Andrews, Wright is among the most cited New Testament scholars alive. The Resurrection of the Son of God runs to over eight hundred pages and does something unusual: it argues the resurrection as a historical question, by first establishing what first-century Jews and pagans actually believed about life after death, and then asking what could have made a group of Jews start saying what they said.
Surprised by Hope corrects a misunderstanding so widespread most Christians have never noticed it — that the biblical hope is going to heaven when you die. Wright shows the New Testament's hope is bodily resurrection into a renewed creation, and argues that recovering this changes what the church does now.
He also writes at a popular level under the name Tom Wright, including a complete For Everyone commentary series on the New Testament.
Jesus said the whole Old Testament was about him. What that means — promise, covenant, pattern and prophecy — and how to find Christ there honestly, without turning every tent peg into a riddle.
What it means to call the Bible inspired, what inerrancy does and does not claim, how infallibility differs, how Jesus treated Scripture, how to handle apparent contradictions, and how Scripture's authority relates to church tradition.
The second coming, the resurrection of the dead, the final judgement and the new creation — what Scripture clearly teaches, where Christians honestly differ, and why it changes how you live now.
The historical case for the resurrection using only facts sceptical scholars concede — the minimal facts method, the alternative explanations, and why each of them fails.
What the New Testament actually says about slavery, how the early and medieval church pushed against it, how churches were complicit in the Atlantic trade, and how Christians — Black and white — led the fight to end it. An honest account of both sides.
Nag Hammadi, Thomas, Judas, Mary and Philip: what these texts actually are, when they were written, what they teach, and why the early church read them and said no — long before Constantine.
The hymns, confessions and prayers Paul quotes in the 50s were already older. They worship Jesus as Lord within Jewish monotheism — evidence that has overturned the old theory of a slow deification.
From persecutor to apostle: the Damascus road, three missionary journeys, thirteen letters, the shipwrecks and floggings, and his execution in Rome.
Mary Magdalene, Priscilla, Phoebe, Junia, Lydia and the others — what the New Testament actually records about the women who funded, hosted, taught and witnessed.
The Canaanite conquest, slavery, and the passages that trouble honest readers — treated seriously rather than explained away.